Don’t talk, listen

With its angry words against the outgoing vice president, BJP indicts itself, not Ansari

In his farewell speech, outgoing vice president Hamid Ansari quoted S.
Radhakrishnan: “A democracy is distinguished by the protection it gives
to minorities. A democracy is likely to degenerate into tyranny if it
does not allow the opposition groups to criticise fairly, freely and
frankly… But at the same time, minorities also have their
responsibilities…” Those are wise words that must be heeded in any
liberal democracy. But India’s ruling party hasn’t done so. As he steps
down from his office, the BJP has caricatured and stereotyped Ansari’s
message, expressed in that parting speech and in other public forums. It
has tried to shoot the messenger, by casting aspersions and imputing
motives. [ . . . ]FULL TEXT: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/editorials/dont-talk-listen-vice-president-hamid-ansari-farewell-speech-pm-narendra-modi-bjp-4792714/

Departing
Vice-President Hamid Ansari’s farewell speech was unexceptionable and
balanced, and it’s hard to see why BJP is in such a tizzy about it. If
statements such as “a democracy is distinguished by the protection it
gives to minorities, but at the same time, the minorities also have
their responsibilities” are deemed “political” in an unprecedented way,
it’s worth remembering that is a direct quote from Sarvepalli
Radhakrishnan, India’s distinguished former president who can hardly be
accused of being ignorant of constitutional responsibilities.

Perhaps
what has upset BJP is previous references by Ansari to rising
insecurity among minorities, sparked by a trend of food bans,
vigilantism and ‘beef’ lynchings which target them.

But this
sense of insecurity is indubitably the case, and it needs to be
addressed rather than swept under the carpet. It is alarming, for
example, that the Maharashtra government wants to revive a law that
would allow police to raid people’s homes looking for proscribed meats,
despite its having been struck down by the Bombay High Court. The law,
incidentally, also overturned a basic axiom of Indian jurisprudence:
that everyone is deemed innocent until proven guilty.

If
such a law comes into force there should no prizes for guessing which
community will be targeted most, although anyone can potentially be
harassed by authorities. It would not only open the floodgates to
greater corruption and extortion, it would also destroy social harmony.
Attempts to set up such draconian legislation cast a new light on the
right to privacy case currently being litigated before the Supreme
Court, where the government is arguing against granting such a right to
citizens. Suddenly a lot more seems to be at stake in the Supreme
Court’s upcoming privacy judgment than just Aadhaar or data security.

Map of L K Advani's Rath Yatra of 1990

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